The twilight language explores hidden meanings and synchromystic connections via onomatology (study of names) and toponymy (study of place names). This blog further investigates "name games" and "number coincidences" found in news and history. Examinations are also found in my book The Copycat Effect (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2004).

Friday, February 12, 2010

The Bishop Shootings

A female shooter was in custody and three are dead. A campus shooting incident occurred about 4:15 pm on February 12, 2010, in Alabama.

Three people were killed and several more injured in the shooting Friday in a science building at the University of Alabama's Huntsville campus, university officials said. (Also known as the University of Alabama in Huntsville.)

Trent Willis, chief of staff for Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle, said several other people had been shot in addition to the four reported, but he did not have an exact number or their conditions.

Huntsville Hospital spokesman Burr Ingram said the hospital was treating three victims. Two were in critical condition and one was in stable condition. It was not clear if the three included the one injured person university officials announced.

Sophomore Erin Johnson told The Huntsville Times a biology faculty meeting was under way when she heard screams coming from the room.

The shooting happened in the university's Shelby Center, a science building. University police secured the building and students were cleared from it.

The Huntsville campus has about 7,500 students in northern Alabama, not far from the Tennessee line.

The university posted a message on its Web site Friday afternoon telling students the campus was closed Friday night and all students were encouraged to go home. Counselors were available to speak with students.

The shooter has been identified as Dr. Amy Bishop, a Harvard-educated neurobiologist who joined the faculty of UAH in 2003.

Her development with her husband, Jim Anderson, of a "portable cell incubator" placed third in a state-wide competition, and won the couple $25,000 of seed money in a business competition.

Mr. Anderson, also reportedly in custody, is said to be the chief science officer of Cherokee Labsystems in Huntsville.

Dr. Bishop's profile has been pulled from UAH's site, but Google's cache reveals her areas of research focussed on the role of gasses on the central nervous system, especially nitrous oxide.

Her lab was working on the development of a "neural computer," the "Neuristor," which would use living neurons—taken either from stem cells or fish.

She also developed the InQ, a "precision instrument designed to increase the precision and consistency of cell growth in laboratory experimentation."

Dr. Bishop has numerous articles in journals to her credit, including studies in the International Journal of General Medicine and Toxicology.

11 comments:

Anonymous
said...

This case seems a little off the bell curve. How common is it for the shooter to be a woman and faculty in a school shooting? Is there a correlation with the economy in these shootings? I feel like the postal shootings happened during the recession in the early 90's?

Actually, a good portion of "Cluster Postal Shootings" happened in the 80's, Anonymous.

The frequency of them originated the term "Going Postal" and cast a shadow over the reputations of the U.S. Postal Service that has never completely abated. Comedians still make jokes about it.

As to the Alabama shooting:I agree also that this is very weird. Apparently Bishop was heard repeating over and over right AFTER the shootings "They're dead, I can't believe they're dead!!!" Apparently she may have been surprised and hysterical. Could it be she was not invilved???And did she own the 9mm that was traced to the crime???

My conspiratorial mind tells me that, even if she DID commit the murders, there's something more to the story than meets the eye.

Outside of the fact that the shooter was a woman a lot of the symptoms seem consistent with incidents.

For one the shooter, a Mrs. Amy Bishop, had always killed her then 18 year old brother back in 1986 'accidentally' and has continued on her merry business until this relapse:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35372168/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts

According this article, she doesn't seem to have remembered the killings either, a la Sirhan Sirhan.

Strangely, on the very same day this killing occurred another individual in Nevada, one Harold E. Montague, ran amok with what is being described as 'medieval-style battle ax'. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35371791/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

After attempting to murder his sister-in-law with said ax Mr. Montague ran outside and attacked a passing mother and her infinite that left the infinite dead and the mother wounded. Naturally Mr. Montague remembers nothing of the assaults either.

Odd that two public killings like this displaying signs of Monarch/Bluebird-esque mind control would occur on the same day so close to each other.

BRAINTREE, Mass. -- A University of Alabama professor accused of fatally shooting three colleagues at a faculty meeting this week shot her younger brother dead at their home in the Boston suburbs more than 20 years ago, but records of it are missing, police said Saturday.

Amy Bishop shot her teenage brother in the chest in 1986, Braintree police Chief Paul Frazier said at a news conference. She fired at least three shots, hitting her brother once and hitting her bedroom wall, before police took her into custody at gunpoint, he said.

Before Bishop could be booked, however, the police chief back then called officers and told them to release her to her mother, Frazier said. The shooting of the brother, Seth Bishop, an 18-year-old accomplished violinist, was logged as an accident, but detailed records of the shooting have disappeared, he said.

"The report's gone, removed from the files," he said.

He said people who worked for the police department then remember the shooting and he planned to meet with the district attorney over the possibility of launching a criminal investigation into the report's disappearance.

The former police chief, John Polio, said Saturday in an interview at his home that he was astonished at any allegation of a coverup. He said he didn't call officers to tell them to release Bishop.

"There's no coverup, no missing records," he proclaimed.

A University of Alabama at Huntsville spokesman said Bishop, 42, had been denied tenure before she was held Friday in the campus shooting.

As Bishop was being taken to jail in handcuffs she said: "It didn't happen. There's no way."

Attempts by The Associated Press to track down addresses and phone numbers for Bishop's family in the Braintree area weren't immediately successful Saturday. The current police chief said he believed her family had moved away.

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO135513/

Those who’ve never been employed at a university are likely shaking their heads and wondering how this could have happened at an educational institution.

Having worked at two major universities and just finishing a temp position from hell at a third, I can vouch for what psychological snake pits these institutions are for those who work there in all capacities.

Universities and colleges can be among the most stressful work environments imaginable, rife with political maneuvering, infighting, backstabbing, and frustration. They can make corporate America look like Sunday school.

Given the stress the current economy is putting on these institutions, which only adds to the already high stress of working at one, it’s not surprising that someone with a history of violence would commit violence again.

Apparently there were strong hints of a cover-up involving the killing of Bishop's brother in 1986. Further Bishop along with her husband were suspects in an attempted 1993 mail bombing of a Harvard professor.

The place of the shooting -University of Alabama at Huntsville, is interesting as well. This campus is deeply involved in the space program, being a Space Grant university. The National Space Science and Technology Center is actually located on the UofA campus while it also borders the Marshall Space Flight Center and U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal.

Interestingly Huntsville was also mentioned by Cathy O'Brien as a place Monarch victims were regularly taken to. Personally I think O'Brien is a disinfo agent but the best propaganda sticks to facts -It's how the facts are presented that the deception creeps in.

This shooter is _so_ strange that all the attention post-event will be on her. But the three dead include the biology department chairman and two other biologists. While all the attention is being paid to Bishop there might be interesting ripples spreading out from one or more of the victims. But the press is carrying almost nothing of their work.

The question of what the dead people were working on is interesting. Anyone have any info on that?

What catches my eye is that this woman couldn't get arrested to save her life. You read articles all the time about people being arrested for overdue library books or unpaid parking tickets. This woman shoots her brother, is suspected on sending pipe bombs through the mail. She pulled a gun on a couple of guys after shooting her brother:http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/02/quincy_man_reca.html

'Pettigrew said he tried to defuse the situation by calmly asking her what was wrong, but she did not seem to hear him.

"At the time, I remember thinking she was out of her mind," said Pettigrew, who was stunned when he learned that the thin, mousy teenager who once held him at gunpoint had been charged in the Alabama rampage.'

And

'"She kept saying 'I need a car, I need to get out of here,'" Pettigrew recalled. "She said he would be looking for her, and that if he found her he would kill her. She seemed terrified."'

This sounds awful funny to me. Are you leading a charmed life when you can go around shooting people, pulling guns on people, maybe sending bombs through the mail? Or is it a cursed life? Sounds rather out of the ordinary either way.

I would watch this latest shooting. Given her history maybe she will skate on this too.

I was following an exchange on another forum that seemed to refer to another suspect being led from the scene in handcuffs. A photo of her/him has since disappeared from the net.

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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2450256/posts?q=1&;page=51

There are photos here:http://www.al.com/mobilenews/news/huntsville.ssfThere is a photo of the police leading away a woman, wearing a green sweater, with longish dirty-blonde curled hair. Definitely NOT this woman in the pink sweater with blackish straight hair.Have two women been arrested?83 posted on Friday February 12, 16:28:11 GMT-0800 2010 by i_dont_chat

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To: i_dont_chatI think that’s her husband,freaky.96 posted on Friday February 12, 16:33:09 GMT-0800 2010 by Protect the Bill of Rights

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To: Protect the Bill of Rightsor maybe not.Unless her husband is a dyke.101 posted on Friday February 12, 16:35:02 GMT-0800 2010 by Protect the Bill of Rights

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To: Protect the Bill of RightsIf the photo of the person in [b]handcuffs[/b], wearing the green sweater and high heels is her husband — well, that’s a story onto itself.143 posted on Friday February 12, 16:57:19 GMT-0800 2010 by i_dont_chat

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To: Protect the Bill of RightsI am wondering the same thing... do you think they just arrested the woman in green until they identified Dr. Bishop? I have searched but cannot find a photo (online) of her husband Jim Anderson....154 posted on Friday February 12, 17:00:13 GMT-0800 2010 by Momto2

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Have two women been arrested?The news said Amy Bishop was the shooter and both her and her husband were both arrested. Nothing I heard was mentioned about a second woman arrested. It would explain things a bit if her husband dressed as / lived as a woman... I would think that all the facts should come out in the next few days... 227 posted on Friday February 12, 19:48:19 GMT-0800 2010 by Screaming_Gerbil

http://www.al.com/mobilenews/news/huntsville.ssfScroll down and at about the middle of the page there is a slideshow down the page - The 6th and the 8th photos in the slide show are of the woman with the longish dirty-blonde curled hair wearing the green sweater. 235 posted on Friday February 12, 20:18:33 GMT-0800 2010 by Screaming_Gerbil

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To: BabaOreallyNo still no lady with green sweater and high heels...wonder if the photo was an early mistake and they took it out.276 posted on Saturday February 13, 05:38:50 GMT-0800 2010 by mdmathis6

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To: mdmathis6I think you are correct - I definitely saw the original blond in a green sweater - I do not believe it was a man dressed as a woman! I think it was someone they "detained" and found innocent so they removed the photo. I'm still surprised no photo of her husband - Jim Anderson - has surfaced - several links to his company, his published articles, etc. but no photo. 282 posted on Saturday February 13, 06:45:43 GMT-0800 2010 by Momto2

I do remember one early account described the shooter as wearing a black and white checkered shirt under a green sweater, and in her photo Amy Bishop was wearing a pink pullover type sweater with no shirt visible underneath.

While I don't want to pick on Loren, I really wish the national media would care enough about a story to get the name of the institution right. This horrible shooting did not happen at The University of Alabama, which is located in Tuscaloosa. The shooting happened at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, which is an independent campus within the University of Alabama System. The University of Alabama at Birmingham is the other member of this university sytem. I know it may seem like hair-splitting, but it does matter to the students and alumni of the different institutions as well as in the name of clarity.

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About Me

Investigator of human and animal mysteries since 1960. Swamp Thing character "Coleman Wadsworth" in #4:7 and more in #4:8, is a tribute.
Author of over 35 books, including The Unidentified (1975), Mysterious America (1983/2007), Suicide Clusters (1987), Cryptozoology A to Z (1999), Bigfoot! (2003), The Copycat Effect (2004), and field guides.
Educated in anthropology-zoology at SIU-Carbondale, and psychiatric social work at Simmons College School of Social Work. Began doctoral work in anthropology (Brandeis University) and family violence (UNH). Taught at NE universities (1980 to 2003), while concurrently a senior researcher at the Muskie School (1983 to 1996), before retiring to write, lecture, consult, & open museum. Popular documentary course was taught for 23 semesters; appeared on C2C, The Larry King Show, MonsterQuest, Lost Tapes, In Search Of, and other tv programs.
Loren Coleman is a dedicated father (Caleb, Malcolm, Des), cryptozoologist, media consultant, and baseball fan.